1The message concerning the Valley of Vision. What troubles you now, that you have all gone up to the house-tops,

2you who are filled with turmoils, a noisy city, a city of revelry? Your slain are not slain with the sword, nor the dead in battle.

3All your rulers have fled together; without a bow they were taken captive. All who are found in you are bound together, who have fled from afar.

4Therefore I said, “Look away from me, let me weep bitterly. Do not try to comfort me because of the ravaging of the daughter of my people.”

5For it is a day of uproar and treading down and perplexity by the Master יהוה of hosts in the Valley of Vision – breaking down of a wall and of crying to the mountain.

6And Ěylam bore the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen, and Qir bared the shield.

7And it shall be that your choicest valleys shall be filled with chariots, and the horsemen shall take up positions at the gate.

8Then He removed the covering of Yehuḏah. And you looked in that day to the weapons of the House of the Forest.

9And you saw the breaches of the city of Dawiḏ, that it was great. And you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.

10And you counted the houses of Yerushalayim, and the houses you broke down to strengthen the wall.

11And you dug a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you have not looked to its Maker, nor have you seen Him who fashioned it long ago.

12And in that day the Master יהוה of hosts called for weeping and for mourning, for baldness and for girding with sackcloth.

13Then see! Joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

14And it was revealed in my hearing by יהוה of hosts, “For this crookedness shall certainly not be pardoned until you die,” said the Master יהוה of hosts.

15Thus said the Master יהוה of hosts, “Go, come to this steward, to Sheḇnah, who is over the house, and say,

16‘What have you here, and whom have you here, that you have hewn a tomb here, as he who hews himself a tomb on high, cutting out a resting place for himself in a rock?

17‘See, יהוה is hurling you away, O man, and is firmly grasping you,

18rolling you up tightly like a ball, into a wide land. There you are to die, and there your esteemed chariots are to be the shame of your master’s house.

19‘And I shall drive you from your office, and you shall be ousted from your position.

20‘And it shall be in that day, that I shall call My servant Elyaqim son of Ḥilqiyahu.

21‘And I shall put your robe on him, and strengthen him with your girdle, and give your authority into his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Yerushalayim and to the house of Yehuḏah.

22‘And I shall place the key of the house of Dawiḏ on his shoulder. And he shall open, and no one shuts; and shall shut, and no one opens.

23‘And I shall fasten him like a peg in a steadfast place, and he shall become a throne of esteem to his father’s house.

24‘And they shall hang on him all the weight of his father’s house, the offspring and the offshoots, all vessels of small quantity, from the cups to all the jars.

25‘In that day,’ declares יהוה of hosts, ‘the peg that is fastened in the steadfast place shall be removed and be cut down and fall, and the burden that was on it shall be cut off. For יהוה has spoken.’ ”